The Deviant and His Canvas
by idroppedmycroissant
Summary: Harleen is in her second week of her internship at the outpatient center of Arkham Asylum and has just met her new patient, Joseph Kerr. The two have an instant connection and she soon finds herself falling for him. When he suddenly stops showing up to sessions and reemerges as the Joker, Harleen is faced with conflict and a sudden change in perspective. Set during Dark Knight


**First off, hi. Second, this is the first fan fiction I've written in four years. I love reading them and have a bunch of stories that just snatched me and have absolutely blown my mind, but I never thought that I'd write my own again. Until**

 **Dun dun dunnn**

 **Now. The idea came out of no where the other day. I rushed to my phone to take notes of what I was thinking, and later I started outlining chapters in a notebook and it's ridiculous how quickly this story unraveled in front of me.**

 **Anyway, I hope you like it. Hopefully, it's lit.**

~Chapter One~

Prologue

Whoever invented the fluorescent light bulb was a fucking idiot. Light that bright must have been made solely for the purpose of inducing headaches. Perhaps they were useful for blinding and torturing, but what the hell was so crucial in a waiting room that would need lights this damn bright?

A minor thing to complain about, perhaps. The lighting only seemed to be noticed by one person in the outpatient waiting area of Arkham Psychiatric Center. He sat quietly with his hands folded in his lap within the group of seemingly normal people.

 _Seemingly normal._

While these people may have looked composed on the outside, they each held their own dark secret. They regarded each other as if they were just passerby's, each individual going on to live some life unbeknownst to the others. Strangers who just happen to be at the same place at the same time.

He knew better that that, though. Each one of these nutcases were in denial. How could you sit down next to a person and casually say hello when you know that in the next ten minutes, you'll be sitting in a room spilling every last detail about your faults while some self-righteous doctor tries to piece you together? They were all here for the same reason: they were dangerous. Whether it be to themselves or to others, these people were capable of harm. And they were all gathered here today to get fixed so that Gotham's society could be safe and normal without the dangers of an unstable individual acting up and causing... _chaos_.

With a subtle grunt, he squeezed his eyes shut and tilted his head back, his hands folded in his lap as he erratically tapped his foot. _Just a few more weeks. Just a few weeks until the charade was up._

Just a few more weeks until this Joeseph character was dead.

He had thought it was hilarious when he picked the alias. _Joe Kerr._ It looked great printed on all of the false documents, even better when said by unsuspecting civilians. But, he had grown sick of the name over the past three years that he had been using it. It was too casual, too businessman. A name like Joseph didn't spark the reaction that he craved from people. Instead, it seemed to come off as too homey, too friendly. So, he had taken to having his employees call him "J". Not as shocking to the public as _Joker_ , and certainly not as bland as _Joe_.

When J opened his eyes back up, he met the gaze of an older woman who seemed to be staring at him, most likely at the imperfections of his face. Tilting his head, he smiled at her innocently before slipping out his tongue to lick at the scars on either side of his mouth, smacking his lips as she met his eyes.

"Do I, _uh,_ have something on my face?" He asked naively. The woman quickly looked away, suddenly embarrassed by her rude behavior. He smirked to himself, pleased with her submissive reaction.

"Joseph Kerr?" a male voice called from the end of the hallway. J's head snapped in the direction of the sound before her stood up, leaning over and cracking his back with a groan. Swinging his arms, he began to whistle as me made his was down the hallway, stopping when he stood in front the source of the voice. The man before him held out his hand, looking up at the Joker, who was at least a head taller than him. "Hello, Mr. Kerr. I'm your assigned psychologist, Doctor Hopkins."

"Doc _t_ or Ho _p_ kins," Joker repeated, his eyes never leaving the dull stare of the other man.

"Yes," the doctor said approvingly, casually letting his hand fall to his side when he realized that the Joker would not shake it. "Well, um, if you'll follow me."

The doctor was frumpy, to say the least. He was bald with glasses, a chubby face on a scrawny body. He was dressed dressed in a maroon plaid shirt and khaki dress pants under his unbuttoned lab coat, which seemed baggy on the man's thin frame. Something about his overall appearance had a "lives at home with mom" vibe to it, but the way he carried himself gave off an air of arrogance.

Hopkins lead J into a room at the end of the hallway, stopping before entering. He looked up at the taller man, a sudden thought seeming to strike his mind.

"Ah, yes," he said, fiddling with the identification tag that hung from his neck. "I meant to ask. We have an intern working in the office now-a student doctor. Would it be a burden if she were to sit in on our session? I'll ask her to leave if that makes you uncomfortable."

"No," J replied with a playful smile, a _pop_ escaping his mouth as he ceased sucking on his inner cheek. "It's not a problem."

He didn't give a shit if some overly eager college graduate sat and listened to his stories. He'd love to see the kid's eyes dilate as he concocted different tales to feed the doctor. The fascination as they ate up his words and scribbled his every word into their drugstore bought notebooks. The bigger the audience, the better.

"Right. Please come in, Mr. Kerr."

" _How degrading is it that my daughter wants to study those psychopaths rather than excel in in something we can boast to the country club about?_

Her mother's exact words, straight from her mouth Harleen's senior year she had told her parents that she had decided on her major. Her father had smiled and patted her on the back, happy about his intelligent little girl's decision. Family friends had praised her and were intrigued to listen about her interest in the subject. Her mother, however, had been disgusted. She pictured her daughter as a school teacher, or a cute little wedding planner. Even being an "actual" doctor would have satisfied her more. But a psychologist? Listening to the problems of low life scum, only to excuse them from any faults with the label of some made up illness? No, that wouldn't do. That was not something to brag about.

Harleen sighed, waiting for doctor Hopkins to return to his office with the patient. This was her first session of the week, and with a brand new patient, nonetheless. This was a new change to the schedule that she had become accustomed to her first two weeks of the internship.

On Tuesdays, she would join the therapy session of Dr. Michael Scoville as he helped a middle aged woman cope with the loss of her husband, whose ashes she carried anywhere she went in a zip-lock baggie. On Wednesdays, she would sit on the couch of Karen Barton's office, holding the hand of a four year old boy, who was too young to go inpatient, as he recited the story of his kidnapping and abuse from the year prior. Thursdays, she would head over to the asylum and speak with the more stable inpatients, spending time with them and learning their stories in a more intimate manner. Then, on Fridays, she would come back to the outpatient center and spend the day with Joan Leland, her favorite doctor at the unit. They would go through Dr. Leland's usual sessions, and ended every Friday with an older schizophrenic man that stated that he heard voices that ordered him to capture and kill little red-headed girls.

Now, on Mondays, she would sit in on the sessions between Dr. Hopkins and a man named Joseph Kerr. From what she had read, the man had been discharged as an inpatient at the asylum after being there three weeks for an extremely violent outburst towards a homeless man. Joseph had apparently had a disagreement with the man and dragged him onto a nearby ally. A woman who had witnessed the situation had gone to go check on the two, only to find the patient in question bashing the back of thee homeless man's head against a brick wall. She had called the police and Mr. Kerr was taken into custody before being deemed as mentally unstable, resulting in his check-in at Arkham Asylum. He had spent three weeks there under close watch, staying with the less "insane" patients while he practiced coping skills and was put on medication. After a noted improvement, the man was free to leave with the promise of staying on his medication and attending the facility's outpatient program. If he didn't comply, the police were to be called and he would be sectioned.

From the patient's files, he seemed to be compliant and relatively normal. Harleen had come into the room confident that this one would be a piece of cake. Hopefully, she wouldn't look at him the wrong way and end up being strangled in the presence of the self-obsessed .

The door knob noisily turned, startling Harleen and making her jump up as if she were doing something that she shouldn't have been. The door creaked open in in walked Dr. Hopkins, who she had only met five minutes prior to the start of their session (in the past five minutes, she had decided that she didn't like the man). The doctor walked in with his head held high, holding the door open for the patient to come in.

"Mr. Kerr, this is Dr. Harleen Quinzel, the intern I was telling you about before." A man walking into the room after Hopkins. The first thing Harleen noticed was how tall he was, probably a little over six feet with a skinny-but-muscular-build. She stood up to stand face to face with him, holding out her hand.

"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Kerr," she greeted with a smile, looking up to meet his eyes. It was then that she noticed them. _The scars._ They branched out on either side of his mouth, the left taking on more of an elongated curve than the right. She quickly looked to her hand, trying to keep herself from staring. She heard him let out a quiet snort before he began to softly chuckle. Her eyes met his again as he took her hand into his larger one, giving it a gentle shake.

"The pleasure is all mine Doctor... _Quinzel_."

 **I really hoped that you guys enjoyed and didn't back arrow the fuck out on me. If you did like it, please review and let me know what you think! I'll update soon. Unless the story doesn't get any views. In which case, I'll probably give up my dreams of fan fiction and go back to actually doing things with my life.**

 **Thanks! xxx**


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